We watched Petite Maman a couple of nights ago. I’d describe it as magical. A meditation on grief. Through leveling the playing field, I won’t say more, it becomes an exploration of children trying to understand their elders, and parents, their children. Gently paced. A gem. 🍿
I was happy to see this this morning, nine days after testing positive for COVID. I’m still not feeling 100% - fatigued, that taste in my mouth - and so I’m pacing myself right now. However, I felt just well enough to pop out and pick some groceries this lunchtime. Small wins.
I don’t know what COVID does to coffee tastes buds? My regular taste buds are gratefully receiving and enjoying a little food. However, after a week of not wanting coffee, I brew a favourite brand and it tastes like mud water to me.
My wife’s first day and night of COVID was not good. Fevers, in and out of sleep. Day two she is looking brighter though not out of the woods yet.
Now I feel as though I am teetering on the edge. Although I have been sleeping in a separate room, indeed building, and wearing a mask when bringing food, etc to her, I have that sense of things not being quite right in my body. A couple of COVID tests feel inclusive - I would lean more towards positive - and so I wait to see what the evening and night bring. 🦠
Kundun, or The Presence, is one of the names that the Tibetans use for His Holiness the Dalai Lama. In 1997 Martin Scorsese directed the movie Kundun, a biographical story of the current Dalai Lama written by Melissa Mathison. I remember going to see the film a number of times when it came out. I picked up a copy of the soundtrack, composed by Philip Glass, and listened to it regularly.
Gratitude arising simply for feeling blessed for what I have in my life.
My wife had a scratchy throat last night, took a COVID test - negative. She slept well but woke up with similar symptoms, took another test - positive. Thankfully the symptoms are mild at the moment. It has taken over two years for the virus to finally find our home.
I love the smell of a freshly fallen lime.
The moon rising last night…
The moon setting this morning…
Those times when the writing gets difficult and my mind starts looking for distractions…in other words my mind goes looking for more pleasant experiences. Writing is pleasant when it is happening easily, when I am in the flow, not so when I am hacking through the undergrowth for those elusive words.
The easy course is to follow the distractions, only to later regret the wasted time and lack of productivity. The more difficult action is to breathe into the resistance and try and get some words down anyway.
Finished reading: How to Be Alone, a poem & book by Tanya Davis. Beautiful, perceptive…and truthful. Be sure to also check out a YouTube presentation of the poem with Tanya Davis narrating. I believe that it will be five minutes well spent. 📚
As I sit a Zebra dove calls out in the stillness, resting my heart.
Finished reading: The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai 📚
Today has been acted through a fog. I was up until 2:00am last night because of a call for a meeting in England (11 hours ahead), and then got up this morning at 6:30am. I’ve cat napped a couple of times during the day, but in between has been a struggle.
This evening’s rainbow 🌈
Saturday evening’s picnic table.
I love Sunday mornings. They are just over too quickly.
I’m not sure what is going on in this photo, taken in Tibet in 1995. I believe that it was taken near to Drepung Loseling Monastery and that the monastery just visible in the middle right might be Nechung Monastery, home of the Nechung Oracle. Both monasteries have been reestablished in exile in India, Nechung in Dharamsala in north India, and Drepung in the south in Kanaktaka State.
Given that it is center stage, I think that I was trying to capture the run down tractor/cart in the middle of the photo.
I had another sighting of the International Space Station at dusk this evening. The viewing was especially clear, with the ISS flying directly overhead.
Another slide coming out of my evening going through old travel photos. Like yesterday’s image, this image is a photograph of a slide projected onto the wall.
The photo was taken at Drepung Loseling monastery in Lhasa, Tibet in 1995. At the time of the Chinese invasion, Drepung was the largest monastery in the world with 10,000 monks - a small town.
The picture shows my Buddhist teacher, Ven. Geshe Damcho Yonten (on the right), speaking with an old monk who had stayed behind in Tibet following the invasion. This was Geshe-la’s (as he was affectionately known) first and only visit back to Tibet having fled the country in 1959.
